Young Guns 2014: Meet the Curbed Young Guns Finalists: the Community Builders

It's time. After weeks spent accepting nominations and sifting through hundreds of talented designers, builders, and architects, Curbed is ready to announce the finalists of Young Guns 2014. All week long we'll be rolling out the nominees. Today: The Community Builders.

Today we kick off the revelation of this year's Young Guns 2014 finalists by introducing a group of designers whose work, be it housing and revitalization in rural areas or landscape design in places particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, directly impact the public. There's an agrarian housing pioneer, an urban dweller battling the perception that architecture is "an accessory professional pursuit" to be dismissed when funds aren't available, and an L.A. denizen looking to better connect architecture and academia with the communities they serve. For them, it's about building and nurturing society first and foremost.

Age: 28 Location: Green River, Utah What he does: Co-Founder, Citizen Architect, and Principal of Housing at The Epicenter

As someone with a design background, what are the nontraditional ways in which you serve your local community?

"Rural places always struggle with having enough resources, enough services, and enough people to attract businesses and professions. It's hard to promote a story without the big shiny building. A lot of what we do is not glossy images, it's getting business managers to sit down at a table and talk about how they can work together, what they can ask the city to do, and what we can do for them to make the economy improve. It's mentoring a youth from the high school."

His work:

Age: 33 Location: New York, New York What he does: Associate Landscape Architect at Robert A.M. Stern Architects and Landscape Design Instructor at The New York Botanical Garden

What is an overarching trend in landscape design that you think will become more prevalent over the next decade?

"A lot of people were woken up by Hurricane Sandy and the potential for damage and devastation that can happen in our urban environment. Landscape architects are really at the forefront of the circulation of all these conversations about resiliency and how to anticipate the next global challenge. We deal with land, we deal with water, and we deal with people and how to integrate communities. We educate them about the new solutions that are being developed, which are sometimes aesthetically not the same as conventional landscapes that they may be used to. They're fuzzier, or more naturalistic - which is a nice way of saying they may look like weeds. Natural spaces are actually really good for defending ourselves against the climate challenges that are coming."

Originally posted here:
Young Guns 2014: Meet the Curbed Young Guns Finalists: the Community Builders